Ecclesia Church pastor Chris Seay stands next to the First Ward warehouse property the Montrose neighborhood church recently purchased.

Ecclesia Church pastor Chris Seay stands next to the First Ward warehouse property the Montrose neighborhood church recently purchased.

Photo: Johnny Hanson, Chronicle

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Taft Street Coffee, in Ecclesia’s existing building, houses a bookstore with religious titles including Seay’s works and the church’s first book of benedictions, Year of Blessings ($10).

Taft Street Coffee, in Ecclesia’s existing building, houses a bookstore with religious titles including Seay’s works and the church’s first book of benedictions, Year of Blessings ($10).

Photo: Brett Coomer, Chronicle

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Even with five weekend services, the 11-year-old church has outgrown its Montrose building. The new facility offers more space for worship and ministry work.

Even with five weekend services, the 11-year-old church has outgrown its Montrose building. The new facility offers more space for worship and ministry work.

Photo: Brett Coomer, Chronicle

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Ecclesia provides service for 'the least of these'

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Ecclesia Church has been waiting.

For more than three years, it has been waiting to find the right place to expand its ministry and better fit its growing congregation of more than 1,500 young adults, families, grandparents and homeless people.

Its members have been waiting to raise enough money, about $250,000, to afford the down payment on another building. They've been waiting to sort through paperwork, contracts, codes and costs. Finally, on Wednesday, the church bought a beat-up First Ward warehouse to become a new facility for worship and community outreach.

Ecclesia's closing date fell in the middle of another period of waiting: Advent, when Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, who they believe humbly entered the world to become their Savior.

During the weeks leading up to Christmas, it's this message of Christ's redemption that drives church activity, such as Christmas-cookie bake sales to support Mission Year ministry teams and a special wine-tasting event that brought in $11,000 for clean-water projects, part of Ecclesia's annual Advent Conspiracy fundraising. Even buying the new building is seen as a way to live out the gospel.

The $1.7 million property sits just north of downtown, in between city-owned buildings, an Amtrak depot and abandoned houses the church will raze to create green space.

"That's what we're made to do: tear down crack houses and places of darkness and make them into places of light," Pastor Chris Seay said. "The most exciting part has been to see the kingdom of God, to see it going forth on a greater scale. It's very much the same mission" as when Ecclesia began 11 years ago.

The church's existing building, a sanctuary/art gallery/coffee shop on Taft in Montrose, holds five crowded weekend services and has been a place for the community, especially artists and the homeless, to gather outside of worship.

"It places itself in the midst of homelessness, and it's very important for the new building, too. When they were looking for a new building, that was a priority," said Laura Pettibon, 23, who has attended Ecclesia for a year and half. "It has such a focus on 'the least of these.' "

Church leaders hope to carry over the same themes of art and hospitality while incorporating a culinary element to the new location. They want to include a pay-what-you-can restaurant, where homeless people can eat for next to nothing and diners who aren't in need can spend a few bucks extra.

A new waiting period begins as Ecclesia starts planning for how the new space will be renovated.

On Sunday, against the soft glow of strings of Christmas lights and an Advent wreath, Seay announced the closing date to a cheering congregation. They'd looked at hundreds of buildings and had been under contract on the 1100 Elder site since August. "You're going to love this place," he said.

The building was once the arson and training center for the Houston Fire Department. It's an old, empty warehouse with lots of work to be done as cheaply as possible, including installing air conditioning and restrooms.

"This is literally fish and loaves," Seay said, referencing the New Testament story of Jesus' miraculously feeding thousands.

Ecclesia is looking to partner with contractors and put its members to work immediately, sorting materials, power-washing, taking down Sheetrock and chipping away tile.

"With this new facility, we don't want to go into so much debt," said John Starr, a church elder. "It took us forever to find, and now we have the capacity to grow more."

Starr said in the five years he's attended Ecclesia, the church has grown to include more families and older members, though it remains relatively young, creative and culturally aware.

Seay is the pop-culture savvy author of The Gospel According to Lost, The Gospel According to Tony Soprano and The Gospel Reloaded: Exploring Spirituality and Faith in The Matrix.

"I enjoy having conversations about the gospel in places where you might not always see it," he said.

Seay's most recent title, though, is more straightforward: The Gospel According to Jesus. The book, released in September, centers on research on negative perceptions of Christianity in Gabe Lyons' book UnChristian, plus his own experiences as a pastor's kid in Humble and a church planter in Montrose. He urges Christians to live out Christ's love and the gospel message as a way to bring about restoration to society's brokenness.

Beyond Montrose, that's Ecclesia's plan for its resources — the building, members and funds - to serve the First Ward with the same close-knit community feel as its packed house in Montrose.

"There's a growing sense of intentionality," Ecclesia member Wayne Brown, 29, said. "We're going to be in a greater area, and we're going to be able to reach more people, but we're not going to become a corporation."

During the building fundraising, Ecclesia partnered with a church in Haiti that's also buying a second facility to expand its ministry into neighborhoods where voodoo practice is prevalent.

"It's not just about us, so as we go on this journey together, I am excited to see what God can do far beyond Houston, Texas," Seay said in a video message from Haiti.